Are You Prepared for Your Face to Become Your Sole Travel Document?

My face just helped me re-enter the United States.

After a lengthy transpacific journey from French Polynesia, I found myself anxiously gripping my passport and glancing at the extensive line at immigration control, filled with passengers arriving on other recently landed flights at San Francisco’s international airport. Although I have Global Entry, it hadn’t functioned as smoothly the last time I used it, long before the pandemic (the automatic passport scanner had malfunctioned).

However, this time, it took just two minutes—all I needed to do was look at a screen, have my photo taken, and collect the receipt printed by the kiosk. No passport scanning, fingerprint verification, or additional checks were necessary. “You’re all set,” an immigration officer told me after I mentioned I had nothing to declare.

This is essentially the vision that airlines and airports have for the future—not just at the end of the journey, but throughout every phase of the air travel experience. Biometric technology, which employs unique physical characteristics such as fingerprints or facial or iris scans for identity verification, was already a focus for the industry prior to COVID interrupting air travel. However, it has gained increased urgency following the recent summer of travel disruptions, when staffing shortages caused passengers to wait in lengthy lines for everything from checking luggage to boarding flights.

One proposed solution by biometric advocates is to increase contactless touchpoints, utilizing travelers' faces or other biometric identifiers to alleviate congestion in the air travel process. Essentially, this means your journey will feature more self-service options powered by advanced technology and less reliance on human interaction.

“We envision a future where travelers can seamlessly move through airports using their face as a boarding pass, enabling them to journey from anywhere to anywhere without ever needing to present travel documents,” states Sherry Stein, head of technology for the Americas at SITA, a Swiss biometric technology firm that collaborates with airlines and airports globally.

In recent years, airports in Los Angeles, Miami, Orlando, and San Diego have partnered with SITA to implement its Smart Path facial recognition technology, which offers low-touch or no-touch options like paperless check-in, contactless bag drop, and lounge access.

Thus far, these implementations have been trial runs involving one or two airlines at selected airport gates. For instance, last year United Airlines experimented with a facial scanning system for luggage check and domestic boarding in partnership with SITA at San Francisco International Airport.

Most of the newer systems focus on facial recognition, which has gained traction due to its simplicity in implementation compared to capturing passengers' fingerprints or iris scans. Airport cameras can easily capture a photo of your face and match it with an existing image from your passport or driver’s license stored in the airline’s database.

If this sounds familiar, it’s because airlines have been promoting this technology as imminent for years. The pandemic certainly hindered progress, but now there’s a renewed effort to make biometrics a reality for a broader range of travelers. While airlines are eager to invest in this technology again, concerns about accuracy and privacy issues surrounding biometrics have also resurfaced, raising alarms among some consumer advocates.

What advantages does biometrics offer?

The airline industry believes that any remaining hesitance will diminish over time as more travelers have firsthand experiences with biometrics. According to the International Air Transport Association, a global trade organization representing about 290 airlines, over one-third of air travelers worldwide have already encountered biometric identification during their journeys, boasting an 88 percent satisfaction rate. In a recent survey, IATA discovered that 75 percent of over 10,000 travelers polled supported biometric IDs, a rise from 46 percent in 2019. The organization is also advocating for more airlines and airports to adopt a standardized technology, introducing a prototype known as “One ID.”

“Travelers clearly view technology as essential for enhancing the convenience of airport procedures. They wish to arrive at the airport prepared to fly and navigate through both ends of their journey more swiftly,” states Nick Careen, IATA’s senior vice president for operations, safety, and security.

Several airlines already provide a glimpse into what this future may entail. For instance, passengers flying Delta Air Lines through Atlanta and Detroit can take advantage of the airline’s “Digital ID,” introduced in 2021, which employs facial matching technology for checking bags, passing through security, and boarding at select gates—all without needing to present a physical boarding pass or government ID. Delta also has a stake in the security firm Clear, an early advocate for biometrics in travel, which now operates its own ID verification lanes at TSA security checkpoints in over 40 U.S. airports that utilize biometrics. (United is also an investor in Clear.)

Delta asserts that the feedback regarding its Digital ID has been favorable. A company spokesperson noted, “A significant majority of eligible customers have chosen to use Digital ID,” which is accessible to those with TSA Precheck, a valid passport, and Delta SkyMiles membership. The airline plans to implement this technology in its new terminals at Los Angeles International Airport and New York’s LaGuardia Airport next.

Other airlines, such as American Airlines, Alaska Airlines, and JetBlue Airways, have also experimented with their own biometric efficiencies at major hubs. In Europe, Lufthansa Group carriers are introducing innovations like biometric “gates” that facilitate much faster boarding than traditional gate agents.

“It is incredibly quick,” says Mike Arnot, a representative for the Star Alliance group, which includes Lufthansa, United, and other leading international airlines. He explains that eligible passengers who enroll in the Star Alliance biometrics feature will have their facial images encrypted and stored in a secure database for the duration of the flight. After the flight concludes, “the gallery is deleted,” Arnot adds.

At the biometric-enabled gate, passengers enrolled in the system simply look into the camera, which takes a photo and matches it against the stored database for identification—this entire process is completed in under two seconds, as noted by Arnot. Once identified, the gate opens to allow the passenger to continue.

Star Alliance, the largest airline alliance in the world, has recently set a target to have 50 percent of its 26 member airlines utilizing biometric technology by 2025—this would double the current number of partner airlines employing such technology.

“Surveys indicate that the overwhelming majority of passengers are willing to share their biometric information if it enhances their travel experience,” states Christian Draeger, the vice president of customer experience at Star Alliance based in Singapore. Advocates claim these enhancements include significant reductions in the time needed to board a full wide-body aircraft. For instance, British Airways reported that it could board a full flight of 400 passengers in as little as 22 minutes using biometric boarding gates tested at Los Angeles International Airport a few years back.

To further boost interest, there are even discussions about implementing facial recognition technology in airport duty-free shops and anywhere else where displaying a boarding pass or passport might be necessary, including airport hotels.

What are the privacy implications?

A major concern hindering the growth of biometric technology is privacy and the measures airlines and airports should take to protect sensitive biometric information. Careen from IATA acknowledges that protecting personal data is a significant issue. “We must consistently reassure passengers that the data necessary for such an experience will be securely handled,” he emphasizes, noting that “collaboration with governments is also crucial to make this work.”

Airlines maintain that passengers will always have the option to opt out. Delta states, “Customers who prefer not to use Digital ID can simply decline and navigate the airport as usual. Furthermore, Delta does not collect or retain any biometric data, nor does it intend to.”

Supporters of the new technology argue that many consumers already share extensive amounts of data online and are comfortable using biometric IDs like facial recognition for tasks such as unlocking their smartphones.

Skeptics argue that air travel is unique due to the numerous companies and government agencies involved in a typical passenger's journey. “We do have concerns,” states consumer advocate William McGee, a senior fellow for aviation and travel at the American Economic Liberties Project and author of Attention All Passengers. He adds that while participation is currently voluntary, opting out might become increasingly challenging for travelers in the future.

In addition to privacy concerns, the technology isn't completely reliable. Data from the Department of Homeland Security indicates that biometric exit tests conducted a few years back rejected about 1 in 25 travelers because their photos were wrongly matched with someone else’s. Supporters claim this statistic is outdated and that the technology is significantly improving. Nonetheless, critics in Congress, including Senator Edward Markey (D-Mass.), have intermittently called for a pause on new developments in the technology until further research is done.

Regardless of whether travelers welcome the shift towards biometrics in air travel, we can expect to see an increase in such initiatives in the coming months and years—some of which may seem quite futuristic. For instance, Delta’s “Parallel Reality” technology, currently being tested at its Detroit hub, utilizes facial matching (for those who opt in) to display your name and gate number on a large screen as you walk by.

“It feels like we’re inching closer to the world depicted in the movie Minority Report,” a traveler joked in a comment on the “View from the Wing” blog. As we encounter more of these sci-fi-style scanners, the notion that your face could serve as your ticket—literally to the world—might not seem so outlandish or futuristic any longer.